Million dollar lottery winner still cashing her food stamps

Speaking of undeserving recipients of redistributed income, word came out this week that a Michigan lottery winner was still using food stamps that she had received before the bonanza.

After winning a $1 million lottery, buying a new house and a new car, Michigan resident Amanda Clayton was still using a Bridge Card worth $200 a month from taxpayers to buy food!

Excerpt:

“I thought that [the State] would cut me off [of food stamps], but since they didn’t I thought maybe it was ok because I’m not working … I won a million, but after I took the lump sum, it dropped down to $700,000, and then after taxes, it was just a little bit over half. … I feel that it’s ok because … I have no income, and I have bills to pay, I have two houses … it’s hard you know, I’m struggling.”

Talk about an entitlement mentality, this story is astounding. Fortunately, once the story broke, her benefits were cut off.

21 Comments

And we are supposed to think this story is all about “redistrubuted income?”

No it’s about dumb.

A dumb State Government who doesn’t want to pay for enough employees to do the job so this doesn’t happen which is an abuse of it’s programs.

A dumb person who is on those programs who never got the rules straight about assets and what is income to be eligable.

It’s also about you, Ted, for as usual, trying to minimize those truly in need who use those programs as being no more than the “entitlement mentality” being bought and paid for with govenment checks notion you spew here on a regular basis.

Carol, you really need to get a clue. Your writings have occasional threads of intelligence, which I support and encourage, but you need to see things from a higher perspective and to start challenging this liberal religion that seems to infect every part of your thinking.

San Francisco practices the kinds of idiot government programs that you support. The results are disastrous. You have homeless people by the thousands. They are like zombies sleepwalking through life, muttering angrily to themselves, harassing everyone they meet, and repeating nonsensical things endlessly like incantations. (Sort of like Pat Cunningham.)

It’s heartbreaking. Mentally ill people who wander out into traffic and then pull their pants down to empty their bodily wastes into the street (yes, both kinds). I could go on and on. All because of this insane liberal philosophy that we can’t “intervene” in the lives of free citizens… all we can do it give them cash.

Bill Gates could liquidate all his assets (around $61 billion) and give it all to the city of San Francisco to alleviate homelessness. After five years, you would have nothing to show for it except tens of thousands of drug-overdose deaths… and a massive increase in the number of homeless people who move to San Francisco to get the superbenefits that are spent on them.

Giving money to people for doing nothing may solve acute short-term problems, but over the long run it creates far more problems than it solves. People stop saving for their old age because they figure the government will take care of them. People smoke and use drugs and eat dumpster-quality junk food every day because they won’t have to pay most of the medical bills that appear ten or twenty years down the road. People stay unemployed far longer than they need to because it’s easier just to collect unemployment (while their work skills petrify and deteriorate).

As for this foodstamp-and-lottery fiasco: foodstamps should be limited to vegetables, skim milk, oatmeal, and liver. Nobody should starve in this country, but the idea is to prevent starvation with a strong “get out of poverty now” message.

DanF
MOre than three times the number of people applied for those jobs at our local auto manufacturer. When they hold job fairs, the turn out is tremendous. People are going back to school to learn new careers.
Why is it you don’t see this happening?
That clearly says how many want jobs and not food stamps and welfare. Ted’s continual beating of his drum, “entitlement mentality,” in referencing those who can’t find work is disgusting.
If you find it upsetting to see the mentally ill in San Francisco walking the street mumbling to themselves, than you may thank the late great dead President Ronald Reagan. Not the liberals you decry, but a staunch Republican. He was the one who wanted to save money in California by closing State run facilities and placing the mentally ill out on the streets telling them to come to neighborhood clinics to get their medications. Saved the State a real potful, but didn’t exactly save cities like San Francisco from what you still see today.
Your statement about people staying unemployed far longer than they need to be is very telling. I guess they also enjoy the experience of losing their homes etc. as California is one of highest repo states in the nation. Whole neighborhoods are filled with empty houses because those once living there like livng in their cars. So much nicer, right?
Where you even get the notion that Liberals want to give out money so others can sit on their butts and do nothing is pure foolishness on your part. Since Ted agrees with you it’s why I say this column he’s done is a waste of space. It encourages the idea a portion of Americans don’t want a job and are taking advantage of those who do have jobs. All the while being endorsed by one political party to stay home and be lazy.

This is just another example of politicians and government entities being extremely good at legislating things, but terrible at running them. The problem is that they are the ones running them with very little knowledge of how to do them and a great deal of relatives they cannot fire for incompetence. “Let nepotism ring!”

Carol, before you accuse Pres. Reagan of “dumping” the mentally-ill on the street, you might want to read about the reasoning behind the law:

The Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, often abbreviated LPS, was a law in the State of California that set the precedent for modern mental health care in the United States. The Act went into full effect on July 1, 1972. It cited seven articles of intent:

To end the inappropriate, indefinite, and involuntary commitment of mentally disordered persons, people with developmental disabilities, and persons impaired by chronic alcoholism, and to eliminate legal disabilities;
To provide prompt evaluation and treatment of persons with serious mental disorders or impaired by chronic alcoholism;
To guarantee and protect public safety;
To safeguard individual rights through judicial review;
To provide individualized treatment, supervision, and placement services by a conservatorship program for gravely disabled persons;
To encourage the full use of all existing agencies, professional personnel and public funds to accomplish these objectives and to prevent duplication of services and unnecessary expenditures;
To protect mentally disordered persons and developmentally disabled persons from criminal acts.
The Act in effect ended all hospital commitments by the judiciary system, except in the case of criminal sentencing (e.g. convicted sexual offenders). It did not, however, impede the right of voluntary commitments. It expanded the evaluative power of psychiatrists and created provisions and criteria for holds.

LPS The last name initials of the California legislators who wrote the California Mental Health Act of 1967: Lanterman, Petris, and Short; and the short-hand designation of the Act.

WIC California Welfare and Institutions Code. The LPS Act is found at WIC 5000, et. seq.

LPS Hold Also known as a mental health hold or psychiatric hold. Any holds defined in the Welfare and Institutions Code sections 5000 et. seq (listed below).

WIC 5150 Also known as 72 hour holds.
“Detention of Mentally Disordered Persons for Evaluation and Treatment” for a period of 72 hours for persons alleged to meet the legal criteria of being a danger to self or others or gravely disabled due to a mental disorder (See WIC 5150 for more detail).

WIC 5250 Also known as 14 day holds.
“Certification for Intensive Treatment” for a period of 14 days for persons alleged to meet the legal criteria of being a danger to self or others or gravely disabled due to a mental disorder (See WIC 5250 for more detail).

WIC 5260 Also known as additional 14 day holds.
“Additional Intensive Treatment of Suicidal Person” certification for an additional period of 14 days beyond WIC 5250 (the first 14 days) for persons who are allegedly imminently suicidal due to a mental disorder (See WIC 5260 for more detail).

WIC 5270.15 Also known as 30 day holds.
“Additional Intensive Treatment” for an additional period of 30 days beyond WIC 5250 (the first 14 days) for persons who were gravely disabled on the first 14 day hold and allegedly remain gravely disabled due to a mental disorder (See WIC 5270.15 for more detail).

Certification Review Hearing: WIC 5256.1
Also known as Probable Cause Hearings.
A facility-based hearing for persons on WIC 5250 or 5270 holds. The hearing is to determine if the psychiatric treatment facility has probable cause to detain the person for the remainder of the hold period. The facility is required to notify the Court (Mental Health Counselor’s Office) when any person is placed on a 5250 or 5270 hold. The Certification Review Hearing is to be held within 4 days of the person being placed on the hold. A facility representative must present the probable cause information at the hearing. The representative of the facility must be a mental health professional designated by the director of the facility to present. The psychiatric treatment facility representative must show probable cause that the person is a danger to self or others or gravely disabled due to a mental disorder. The patient is usually represented by a Patients’ Rights Advocate from the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health but may be represented by a private attorney. The hearing is based upon the specific criteria certified on the hold (see above for hold criteria).

Mental Health Hearing Referee: WIC 5256.1
Also known as a probable cause hearing officer or certification review hearing officer. A person meeting the requirements of this statute and designated by the Supervising Judge of the Mental Health Court to conduct Certification Review Hearings and file Judicial Reviews requested by persons on holds. Medication Capacity (Riese) Hearings are conducted by designated Mental Health Hearing Referees who are licensed attorneys (See Medication Capacity Hearings below).

Judicial Review WIC 5275 et. seq.
Also known as a Writ or Writ of Habeas Corpus.
“Judicial Review”: A person may request one Judicial Review per hold of a Certification Review Hearing decision finding probable cause. Also, a person may choose to bypass the probable cause hearing for direct Judicial Review. The Mental Health Hearing Referee will prepare the Writ for the patient’s signature, serve the facility with a copy, and file the Writ with the Court for hearing. The Writ must be filed with the Court on the date taken and heard in Court within two judicial days.

I had experience with the laws in California in reference to a former sister-in-law who was in desperate need of mental health care. Let me tell you how it works.
After you call to say there’s a need for the person to be seen, you have to get them there to be evaluated. When the doctor says there’s a problem and places them in a facility, that placement is good for only ten days. Unless the State thinks they are a probale ax murdered with access to the weapon, they are released at the end of the ten days and told to report monthly to a social worker who is supposed to also see where they live etc but is too busy with their case load to do it.
My sister-in-law had problems prior to being rapped. I found her in a county hospital the day after she didn’t show up to meet me for lunch. She was beaten so badly I couldn’t recognize her and had to ask the nurse which person she was on the ward? the hospital kept her a total of three days, gave her bus fare money, and put her out on the corner to fend for herself. She barely know who she was. I took her in and for days tended to her trying to get her the help she so desperately needed.
At the end of the ten day commitment at the facility, she still couldn’t tell the doctor the full story of that rape or how she planned to care for herself. They still dumped her out on the street as being competent. On her own she was too ashamed to go to a group of rape victims and when I called one of those hot lines to find her help, they said unless she called they would do nothing.
The last think she needed was to be dumped on the street with bus fare in her pocket from the hospital. And to be dumped for a second time from a 10 day treatment facility. So, SNuss, you may quote all you like those rules but they certainly didn’t work for her and aren’t working today from the number of mentally ill walking our streets.
The “balther” as SNuss loves to say here often, is that I see of people like Ted to beat that drum of “entitlement mentality” without looking at who people really are and why we need to take better care in our society of so many who can’t care for themselves. And they make it a political mantra and defend their lack of caring as if it’s a badge of courage.
Well gentlemen, I’ve had to pick-up after one of your great conservative money saving plans in California. And DanF is still seeing just how well it works today. Gov. Reagan did it to save a buck and not protect anyone’s rights. Ted preaches “entitlement mentality” for the exact same reason, to save a buck. And those who can’t defend themselves grow in numbers on our streets and in our shelters and go hungry and in need of care.
Wasted column, Ted, when you used your example of winning the lottery to further the save a buck cause without seeing the faces of those you plan to further damage.

Carol, you probably won’t read this and I know you wouldn’t follow the link so I posted it in its entirety.
“Revisionist History, Mental Health Patients and Ronald Reagan
With the recent Arizona shootings by a mentally deranged person, the revisionist history of Ronald Reagan and his so called “closing down the mental health system” during his reign as governor in California has popped up again. The real story is Reagan had not turned from the dark side when he was governor, and instituted the changes in the mental health system at the behest of progressive reformers of the time.

The blaming Ronald Reagan for destruction the mental heath system is typical progressive revisionists history. By the late 1960s, the idea that the mentally ill were not so different from the rest of us, or perhaps were even a little bit more sane, became trendy. Reformers dreamed of taking the mentally ill out of the large institutions and housing them in smaller, community-based residences where they could live more productive and fulfilling lives. Simultaneously, the ACLU was pushing a mental health patients right agenda that resulted in O’Connor v. Donaldson (see below) In 1967, Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS), which went into effect in 1969 and quickly became a national model. Among other things, it prohibited forced medication or extended hospital stays without a judicial hearing. The Governor signed a bill inspired by those who clamored for the “civil rights” of the mentally ill to be on the street and who claimed they’d be better off with community counseling.

So no, Reagan, didn’t close mental hospitals or put anyone on the street. Progressive views on mental health, a misguided ACLU, and politicians who “know better” did it. Then finally (the last year Reagan was governor), O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563 (1975), the Supreme Court found a constitutional right to liberty for mental health patients: “There is…no constitutional basis for confining such persons involuntarily if they are dangerous to no one.” With this constitutional recognition, the practice of mental health law became a process of limiting and defining the power of the state to detain and treat. The result was a codification of mental health rights that have done away with non-voluntary commitment except in extreme cases.”

Wilson
The only “revisionist history” being touted here is what you’ve written in your post. I didn’t image the savings Reagan talked about nor the hospitals he closed. Didn’t image those doctors telling me 10 days is all the treatment my sister-in-law could get unless she was considered dangerous to others. Didn’t image the hospital gave her the bus fare and put her on the street when she was unable to care for herself. Do you really think a badly beaten person who isn’t even sure where they live, or how they will get to an address they are given as being where they live, is capable of taking several buses to get anywhere near their home?I was lucky she realized who I was and was willing to come with me and that I arrived as she was being released from the County Hospital with her bus fare in her pocket!

Just love those who tell you what happened didn’t happen at all. Than Gov. Ronald Reagan didn’t endorse and close down those hospitals and the 10 “help” wasn’t to save a buck and than dump those in need back onto the streets. Guess when the doctor at that 10 day facility told me they had no room to keep anyone more than the 10 days because of the overwhelming need for the beds, that was a lie? They use to have longer care facilities but those had been closed down for the most part.Couldn’t have all those “entitlement” minded folks hanging out taking advantage of you hard working Conservatives when they obviously have boot straps they aren’t using to help themselves.

In those days we all heard how easy it was to get gov welfare and all the cheaters driving Caddys and eating steak on our Food Stamps. Reagan was going to put a stop to that in California and than later the entire nation. What’s so different now, Wilson? Same old stories only a new phrase “entitlement” makes it all different?

You don’t get to rewrite what happend and why it happened to that women. Can’t pretend you don’t know any longer there were real consequences to real people and there wasn’t help for them.

The next time you’re tempted to say how easy it is to jump onboard the gov gravy train by just asking, and tout your “entitlement” bull, you might recall my ex-sister-in-laws real story. There were thousands just like her who never got the help they needed but Ted likes to talk about the one lady who won the lottery and still wanted her welfare check.

Carol,
I can tell you didn’t read it. I won’t waste my time rewriting it, because you would again completely miss the point. I don’t believe reality and facts ehave ever crossed your path in life. I am sure you are a very nice lady who has no grasp of reality, only the reality you dream up.

No, Wilson, you are confusing me with my ex-sister-in-law who lost her grasp on reality after the rape.
I was the one trying to pick up after the Conservative Gov who touted how much he’d saved by closing State run facilities and dumped it all onto the counties and local govs saying how much more effective that worked. He took the credit and he gets to keep it. Your rewrite of history isn’t the life experience my sister-in-law had under Ronald Reagan.

No Carol, you balme Regan, not the progressives who pushed for rights and the closing of those facilities.
” the ACLU was pushing a mental health patients right agenda that resulted in O’Connor v. Donaldson (see below) In 1967, Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS), which went into effect in 1969 and quickly became a national model. Among other things, it prohibited forced medication or extended hospital stays without a judicial hearing. The Governor signed a bill inspired by those who clamored for the “civil rights” of the mentally ill to be on the street and who claimed they’d be better off with community counseling.”
I am sorry for your sister, did you even consider a church run facility for support?

Guess Wilson you missed there was NO Judicial hearing for my sister-in-law. Ten days and your out on the street. The follow-up was non existant and Reagan used the law to save a buck.
Face the truth, that’s how it worked and if they would have been a hearing, there would have been no bed available as Reagan had pretty well closed all the facilities. So like today in relationship to those seaking help for drug abuse, there’s usually no room at the Inn unless you have insurance.
Funny, things haven’t changed much. Conservatives still deny Reagan did anything wrong. Still tell the old stories of welfare fraud steak eating CAddy driving recipients getting those checks for a lifetime from producing babies rather than getting honest work.
It’s so inconvenient when someone steps up and tells what really happened.
How laws were used and abused to save a buck and that real people were affected by it.
End of topic for me, Wison, as you will never get it.
ON second thought maybe you will get it when you need to try and get all the free gov help you think is so easily available for a family member and discover what real food stamps will buy in the real world and there’s no Caddy in the picture.

How is her mentality any different from the Wall Street Bankers who received millions of dollars in bailouts, subsidies to the oil industry and megafarmers (industrial farmers, big corporations) and the fraud on Wall Street? Why are you so shock and surprised?? We are a nation of greed and its corrupting what this country built and stood on for so many years.

Besides the fraud case you site, the bankers didn’t receive the bailouts – the banks and the stockholders did and most banks have already paid it back . GM and the unions, however, haven’t has yet and still owe $50B or so.

The oil industry and the megafarmers, big corporations etc., all earned the money or risked their money through investment and this welfare fraud is being brought before a judge for her fraud. All the 99% occupiers equate welfare and earnings as the same and you obviously equate greed with anyone earning more that the person who doesn’t work. It’s called profit and capitalism – you and Obama obviously want America to be like all those other socialist countries in Europe and Greece which are all going bankrupt and rioting in the streets.

Some of all groups in the U.S. cheat, even welfare recipients in this case, who thought she was entitled to the “welfare.” and the Million bucks. – It’s very different from that which you refer.